To mark the Chinese New Year, Disciples Today is publishing a series of articles written by our correspondent in mainland China. For the previous articles in this series, see Part 1: Good News from China, Part 2: Are Christians In China Persecuted? and Part 3: The Amazing Story of Christianity’s Arrival, Near-Death, and Revival in China.
Part 4: The story of the International Churches of Christ in China
One question I am often asked by disciples from outside of China is “Who, in the ICOC, supports the Chinese churches?”
The surprising answer is that this group of churches have been almost 100% self-supporting since 1997! All the Chinese mission plantings are funded by the missions contributions of Chinese disciples themselves. The China family of churches has also provided financial support for HOPE worldwide, Disciples Today, ICOC HotNews, the One Year Challenge program and churches in other countries in financial need.
The foundations of this self-funding can be traced to the Spirit-led—and strategically astute—decision to plant a church in Hong Kong in 1987 by the Boston Church of Christ.
One of the peculiarities of the mission team—17 disciples in all—was that, although many were ethnically Chinese, very few spoke Chinese, much less the notoriously difficult-to-learn Cantonese used in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, by faith the team began building a church and learning Cantonese.
Within a year there were over 50 disciples. From the start, the Hong Kong church cultivated a strong sense of mission—to preach the gospel throughout China—with lead evangelist Scott Green personally taking recently-baptized campus disciples to spend a month in mainland China, building their vision for future plantings.
The Hong Kong church baptized hundreds in its first few years and by the end of 1991 sent out its first mission team, to Taipei. In the same year it became financially self-supporting. Since that time, the vast majority of mission work funding for greater China has come from Chinese Christians themselves, with virtually all of it being locally raised since 1997.
That first church planting sent from Hong Kong started fruitful campus ministries in Taipei. The Taipei church began planting new churches, too. Today there are six churches throughout Taiwan as a direct result of the first mission team.
The Hong Kong and Taiwan church jointly planted numerous churches in mainland China, which have in turn planted others. Some of our mainland Chinese churches are fifth generation plantings! Details of the scope of church planting in mainland China must wait for a future article, but in broad strokes we have much to thank God for: several churches are now self-supporting and have sent out their own mission teams. Young men and women, themselves baptized in China, lead many churches and are raising up next generation church planters and leaders.
Next in this series: 7 Reasons the Year of the Rooster Is Your Time to Take the OYC